


A Taste of Hope

by tryslora



Series: Sans Regret [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Multi, Polyamory, Pregnancy, Relationship Negotiation, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 21:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2667104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melissa has news, and things are complicated because there were three people in that bed when it happened... but that doesn't make John love her any less, or make him any less willing and interested in working out how there can still be three of them together going forward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Taste of Hope

**Author's Note:**

> I started this series ages ago, with stories from Chris's and Melissa's POVs. I always meant to finish it out with one from John's POV, and I finally got around to writing it. However, I'll tell you this now, there will be two more stories in the series after this, because it needs more closure in my head! Stories will post on Mondays until I am done with the series and mark it complete. And as always, I do not own the world nor characters of Teen Wolf, I just like to play with them!

“You’re what?”

Chris speaks, but it’s John who takes a step backwards, reaches for the nearest chair and holds on as he sinks into it, legs giving out. He knows he should say something, but there are no words for this, none that make sense.

Melissa holds up her hands. “I know, I know. We all should have known better, and there was alcohol involved, and in retrospect, maybe it wasn’t the best of ideas that we’ve had. But this… it’s happened. And I’m keeping it.” She straightens her back and lowers her hands, expression set. “I don’t expect anything from either of you, and I won’t tell the boys who the father is, not if you don’t want me to. The decision to keep this baby is on me. I’ve raised one son on my own and I can do it again.”

This is the woman that John has slowly been falling in love with. The one he hears Claudia whisper in his ear about at night, telling him that he _should_ , that he _can_. That she approves. He loves her strength and her determination, and this might not be how he’d planned to tell her, but the moment is here and now.

“You don’t have to do it alone, Melissa.”

Of course, Chris beats him to the punch. He’s younger. Fitter. A harder man, perhaps, but just as determined. John inhales and pushes to his feet, determined not to be left behind. “Our sons already think we’re dating,” he points out. “I can’t say anything about Scott, but Stiles keeps leaving me pointed messages.”

Her smile quirks. “Scott’s had his suspicions.”

“It sounds like you two have this in hand, then.” Chris’s expression is shuttered as he takes a step back; it’s a look John remembers well. He saw it after Victoria passed, and then again a few months back when they had to bury Allison.

“I thought you said you were in,” John points out. “There were three of us there in that bed, unless one of us has been with Melissa since.” He raises both his eyebrows, putting the point on the question that isn’t there in his voice.

“No sex for me since then,” Melissa says. She glances behind her at the door, frowning, and John can follow her train of thought. Neither of them will say it, but it’s serendipity that they are talking this out at Chris’s place. It’s the one place there will be no teenagers barging in on them, no pack suddenly in appearance. 

As sad as the reason for it is, it’s the one place they have privacy.

“Look, I…” John’s voice trails off because he can’t remember what he was about to say. For God’s sake, he’s forty-seven years old. He’s got a kid who’s seventeen, and his two best friends and recent lovers are both younger than him. He can’t be starting over again now. It just doesn’t make sense in his head, and yet, it’s happening. He looks at Melissa, at the way she stands there with her body stiff and her head held high, and he can see the prick of tears in the corners of her eyes.

This is real.

He just opens his arms and she comes into them willingly. It takes another motion of his hand to get Chris to step in behind her, so they cradle Melissa between them, focussed on her the way they were at the start of that fateful night. When John touches her cheek, she tilts her head and he kisses her gently. She turns to look at Chris and he seems intent when he kisses her as well.

_In for a penny, in for a pound._

John reaches past Melissa, manages to slide his fingers against Chris’s cheek, and it’s strange all over again. It was strange that morning when they woke up, but it was also still like a part of the night before, like it was somehow continuing. This is dead sober, in the light of day, with Melissa telling them that one of them is somehow going to be a parent all over again.

Still seems like the right thing to do.

Chris hesitates, but John won’t force the issue. It seems to him that there’s a triangle here. However it started with Melissa in the middle, they ended up equal in the end, and he’s willing to try that out. Figure it out. After a moment, when Chris finally moves, John meets him for a kiss and it’s a little too rough, and a little too quick, but no less _good_ because of that.

“So,” Melissa says quietly.

“I’m thinking that new life is a big deal,” John says quietly. “We’ve all lost a lot over the years. Two wives, one husband we wish would stay lost.” He smiles just a little when Melissa chuckles weakly at the way Rafael keeps inserting himself back into their lives. “A daughter.” A small nod to Chris with a sober expression; they all miss Allison more than they can say. “A sister, and too many friends. Some of us have almost lost ourselves along the way, too. Life here is full of uncertainty, and when something like this comes along, it seems to me it would be a damn shame to just let it go by without trying to hold on. We’re being given something, instead of something being taken away. I say we grab on.”

“And by _grab on_ , are you implying naked grabbing?” Chris says dryly. “Because you can see where that got us.”

“It got us a new life and another chance,” Melissa says firmly. “And I don’t regret it at all. It was good with you—with both of you.”

“Could you see that as your life?” Chris asks. “Could you see waking up with two men every day? Figuring out how to fit us all together in one house, with two almost-adult boys—”

“Three,” Melissa points out, and of course, they can’t forget that Isaac is living at the McCall home.

“ _Three_ almost adult boys and an infant,” Chris finishes his statement. “How do we even start something like that?”

“Seems to me that we tell the boys—and likely the rest of the pack—then we move on,” John says. “See each other. Spend some time together, and go with Melissa to her appointments and be there as the baby grows. Be a part of each others’ lives, which we’ve been more often than not lately.” 

Because he was already _here_ when Melissa called. He’d stopped by to talk to Chris about the odd rifling he’d found on a bullet used in a recent attack, thought it might be an engraving that would signify a hunter. They’d ended up talking about life over a beer, and then Melissa arrived and turned things upside down.

But they’re already friends. It seems almost easy to see it becoming something more.

“I’m old,” John says. “I’m old, and I’m past my prime, and I’ve spent a good part of the last year trying to figure out a way to ask Melissa on a date when she’s almost ten years younger than me and men who look like Peter Hale are beating down her door. I don’t have a lot of time to look for third chances, or fourth, or fifth, when there’s _this_ sitting right in front of me and screaming for me to hold on tight. We’ve got this, and all we need to do is try.”

“I’m in,” Melissa says, and she holds out her hand, palm up. John covers it with his own, feels the roughness of her fingers against his, the way she curls hers to hold on.

Chris looks at them both before he carefully adds his hand to the mix. “I’m in,” he says gruffly.

The tight band around John’s heart loosens, and he sucks in a breath, smiling slowly. “Good,” he says. “We’ll all give this a chance then.”

It doesn’t make the aches and pains of his age go away. It doesn’t change the fact that Allison’s dead, or the fact that he had to watch Claudia go into the ground years ago. It doesn’t change the past at all.

But it does give them a future.

It gives them hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me [on tumblr](http://tryslora.tumblr.com)!


End file.
